"Panzer pope": Known as "God's rottweiler," new pope Benedict XVI is "one of the most controversial figures in the modern Church," according to the Telegraph. No wonder. A quick Google search reveals a past and present filled with disturbing facts. A one-time (and half-hearted) member of the Hitler Youth, he spent the war "enrolled in an anti-aircraft unit that protected a BMW factory making aircraft engines. The workforce included slaves from Dachau concentration camp."

More recently, he intervened in the 2004 US presidential election to force bishops to refuse communion to John Kerry (he issued no similar order to 6th Commandment defier and preemptive warmonger George Bush). And, if you're wondering about his openness to all spiritual seekers, consider that he called homosexuality "an intrinsic moral evil." Gay Catholic conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan says
Benedict's election accelerates the Church "toward authoritarianism, hostility to modernity, assertion of papal supremacy and quashing of internal debate and dissent. We are back to the nineteenth century."